So is Labour still vowing to over-ride Pharmac?

The makers of Keytruda have been forced to amend trial data given to doctors, after overstating the benefits of the melanoma drug.

The ground-breaking new cancer drug is at the centre of a major PR campaign, by both the drug company and terminal cancer patients, to gain public funding through Pharmac.

Made by Pharmaceutical company Merck Sharp and Dohme (MSD), Keytruda is the brand name for Pembrolizumab – a biologic drug for terminal melanoma patients, that has produced promising results in early clinical trials.

Keytruda branding was understood to be a major feature of a recent New Zealand Society of Oncologists conference, where slides showing some of the latest clinical trial data were presented.

In a letter to conference attendees, Merck’s oncology clinical director Colin Yeoman said the headline on one of the slides was misleading.

It was able to be interpreted that 100 per cent of patients that had received the drug as a first-line treatment had had a postive response.

“MSD was concerned that using the heading from the presentation… ‘Duration of Response in First Line’ could be misinterpreted as the response in all first line patients,” said Yeoman in the letter.

“Our intent was therefore to clearly communicate that only the responding patients were represented in the [right-hand chart].

“Despite our best intent, having reviewed this and in the absence of published updated duration data for this patient cohort; the information on this slide does not support the 30 months claim. It does however, support that in responding first-line patients, the responses were durable.”

That unsupported claim was that “most patients that responded to first-line treatment were still responding at 30 months”.

So Andrew Little has vowed to over-ride Pharmac and fund this drug at a cost of possibly $100 million – and all on the basis of an incorrect PR campaign. He should be embarrassed.

holysheet

billmurray

Andrew Little is not known in left wing circles as a brainy guy, in fact the opposite. Many people marvel that he is the leader of the Labour party and of course that was because of the union block vote at the ballot. It would be irresponsible for the people of NZ to vote Labour whilst he is leader.

blazeoflight

@thegolfer

Key did refer to $100m as chump change, and on the context of a $230 billion economy, it is, which makes the progressive reduction in real per capita spending on health and education even more heinous – and since that reduction impacts most on the lower socieoconomic deciles, it could even be just outright sadism by the Key/English duo of psycopaths.

ross001

Fentex

He should be embarrassed.

No more than National MP’s ought be for their similar policy regarding Herceptin which, unlike Labours promise was implemented. And don’t pretend Key didn’t also suggest he’d support over-riding Pharmac when interviewed on the topic.

There’s room to bitch about politicians in general interfering in Pharmac’s business but no reason to pick out Labour for promising to do so over Naitonals actually doing so.

No more than National MP’s ought be for their similar policy regarding Herceptin which, unlike Labours promise was implemented. And don’t pretend Key didn’t also suggest he’d support over-riding Pharmac when interviewed on the topic.

Yep.

But to the current Minister of Health’s credit he has acknowledged the mistake in overruling Pharmac over Herceptin.

Health Minister Jonathan Coleman has conceded the Government was wrong to override Pharmac and fund breast cancer drug Herceptin in 2008, as it comes under continued pressure to step in over “game-changing” melanoma drug Keytruda.

Coleman has declined to intervene over Keytruda, despite the incoming National Government making a similar decision with Herceptin when it came to power in 2008.

Asked by TV3’s Paul Henry whether overriding Pharmac on Herceptin was “the right thing to do”, Coleman said: “I don’t think it was actually, and I think history has shown that.

“The research shows that nine weeks which were funded previously is actually just as good as 52 weeks, but I think lessons have been learned.”

I’ve noticed that since Keytruda has been mentioned, there are two other potential cures for melanomas, one is being developed in NZ by kiwi’s and the other in Aus, I think to do with the herpes virus (this mornings herald). So Jonathan Coleman was correct when he said all the drug companies are trying to sell governments their products. Best keep money in the pocket for now and see what better deals can be made.

But to the current Minister of Health’s credit he has acknowledged the mistake in overruling Pharmac over Herceptin.

And perhaps, six or seven years after Labour over-rules Pharmac, its then-Health Minister can decide enough time’s gone past and graciously acknowledge that they shouldn’t have done it – how creditable…

Captain Mainwaring

Jim

Labour’s thinking process about spending is along the same lines of the person who wins lotto and is broke, unemployed, divorced, and in serious debt one year later.

In other words Labour thinks like their constituents.
If you can write a check: do it.
If cheque account is empty and finance is available: buy it!
When everything has gone to shit: hide and wait for someone else to fix it. Claim you are being robbed by those who have learned to save.

Richard

I never thought I’d see the day that Little Andy would become a drug rep for Merck Sharp & Dohme. I guess the invite to visit Corp HQ at Kenilworth New Jersey U.S of A can’t be far off if he manages to land them this account. Drug rep of the Year!

mikenmild

deadrightkev

Well done Milkey

You just confirmed without any doubt you know nothing. I would stop now before you make a bigger dork of yourself.

Do you seriously think oncologists know how to cure cancer? If that is true why is it that 97% of headline cancer patients die within five years of chemo and radiation treatment? Oncologists administer cyto-toxic pharmaceuticals that usually lead to death or serious loss of quality of life. They shrink donor cell tumours but not the cancer stem cells so the cancer comes back. Usually much more aggressively because the immune system has been wiped out.

Oncology and chemotherapy is a business model. It is not a treatment. Melanoma laughs at chemotherapy. That is actually a positive for melanoma patients because once a terminal cancer patient has been through chemo the chances of turning them around by a detox treatment is greatly diminished. Melanoma responds incredibly well to detox, a strict plant based diet, exercise and daily exposure to direct sunlight.

Advanced natural treatments that rebuild the weakened immune system and natural killer cells actually do cure cancer long term. Treatments such as antineoplaston, RIGVIR, Gerson and several others are way ahead of oncology.

Immunotherapy and virotherapy is the new way forward and if you have not heard of these natural treatment successes I do not blame you because there is no money in natural treatments, you cannot patent them. They do work and thousands of survivors already know that.

mikenmild

LOL
What a lunatic.
Now we get an insight into why you were so attracted to Colin Craig – you’re a fruitloop too.
Gerson? – pseudoscientific bullshit
RIGVIR? haven’t heard of that one – pretty sure it’ll be complete woo
Antineoplaston? dangerous woo
I sure hope you don’t get cancer, kev.

Jesus wept
People like you kill dead head .
I had two close friends diagnosed with breast cancer.
One had chemo and two mastectomy’s she lived a good full life for another two decades before it finally took her.
The other wasted fifty or sixty grand on alt treatments even flew to Mexico for one of those wacky regimes she was pushing up daisy’s in less than two.

deadrightkev

deadrightkev

Have your fun but over 90% of people with cancer die within five years. So you know two? Do you think an oncologist is going to broadcast that failure rate?

Do you know anything about cancer apart from voodoo Mexico stories? Do you know the % of failure and successes?

No, you know fuck all.

If DPF and his great party really wanted to help sick Kiwis they would not focus on drugs for cures because they do not work. The Nats would be far wiser to follow up natural treatments that work and are much less costly.

You are in for a big shock if you get sick and think an oncologist is going to cure you with chemo. Now that is a ROFL. Cancer is something I know a lot about.

If you get cancer and go alt you will die.
quickly and needlessly.
Alt therapy would be medical mainstream if it worked.
It doesn’t no documented evidence than any of the crap you spurt is better than a placebo some of it is even dangerous to health .

Big pharma is not the medical world dead .
They are close but separate.
The medical world knows that sometimes pharma allows selling product to override good science. http://www.badscience.net/
Heath care relies on the medical profession not pharmaceutical sales men for treatment .
Quacks make money of selling snake oil to the ignorant and gullible.http://www.quackwatch.com/
That is you.

Nookin

Kevvy

No, I did not google the esteemed quack Brych. I have a very clear recollection of the fraud he perpetrated on his patients. You may have been in diapers at the time. It was in the papers, you know. Often.

mikenmild

deadrightkev

Milkey

I had to uptick that one. Well done.

You have a very clear recollection of what you were spun by the media of the day. Laetrile is B17, nothing more than a supplement like Vitamin D3 and Niacin, none are a “treatment” on their own, but in conjunction with other protocols together they can sure help put the brakes on the disease. At the time Laetrile was thought to be a possible breakthrough so it was pursued for obvious reasons – to cure cancer.

Trouble for Brych or anyone pursuing a non patent drug treatment in a western economy is that they are harassed mercilessly by the state. Medicine has been controlled by the pharmaceutical industry since the 1950s when Rockefeller and Carnegie rewrote the medical system from natural treatments to drug based treatments.

The top clinics have been going since the 1950s because the protocols are proven to work. The majority of terminally ill patients recover if they follow Gerson or similar as an example for melanoma, but not all can be saved obviously.

Those terminally ill patients that have previously had chemo and radiation struggle with advanced natural medicine protocols because the immune systems are damaged. People get sick then get cancer, it is an immune system failure.

There are several well proven treatments that work for cancer, they are non toxic and far more effective than chemo/radiation. These clinics will tell you what to do for free at home if you cannot afford to go there for treatment.

You would be well advised to research before you get sick. Once you are sick you have two choices for survival. Make sure it is a wise choice when you have a choice. The good news is you do not have to make your mind up sitting in the oncologists office despite his pleas for urgency to get you in the chemo system. It takes from five to twelve years for a tumor to reach a measurable size.

Unless you have left things to the point where you are bedridden you have time to do the research.

mikenmild

Laetrile is completely ineffective as a cancer cure. doesn’t make any difference if you call it B17, even though it’s not a vitamin.
Gerson is dangerous nonsense, and this has been well demonstrated for over fifty years.
In the real world, if these fringe woo treatment were effective, cancer specialist and the evil pharmaceutical executives would use them. They don’t.